


Goldenshield 2004

by wheel_pen



Series: Immortals [9]
Category: Lie to Me (TV), The OC
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 17:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3455969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan and Seth are in jail—but not dead, which is inexplicable given their recent misadventure. Then a stranger shows up, claiming to be Seth’s biological father, who can explain their mysterious abilities. Just a few scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goldenshield 2004

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The Immortals are powerful Earth beings who have children with mortals and are supposed to take care of them. The different clans are inspired by various movies and TV shows.  
> 2\. The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things.  
> 3\. I own nothing, and I appreciate the chance to play in these universes.

_Nebraska, 2004_

There were plenty of teenage boys in the holding pen at the jail. But tonight two in particular stood out. They sat quietly on a bench in the back corner, staring at phantom points on the floor or wall, not talking to anyone, even each other. Their clothes were expensive; they obviously weren’t from around here, though the blond had a certain streetwise look about him. But that alone wasn’t enough to keep the other unsavory occupants of the cell from harassing them—it was the aura of shock and confusion about them. Anyone who ventured close turned and left almost immediately, irrationally afraid of being sucked into the black hole of trouble between them. Which neither boy was unhappy about, to say the least.

Finally Seth spoke. “Blanks.”

Ryan’s blue-green gaze shifted over to him. “There’s a hole in my shirt.”

“You probably tore it on accident,” Seth countered. He moved his hands in a vaguely karate-chopping motion, even though Ryan had never studied martial arts in his life. “During the fight.”

“There’s powder burns around it,” Ryan reminded him. His jacket was buttoned tightly across his chest, despite the warmth of the holding cell. “And blood.”

“A cut,” Seth tried, desperation creeping into his tone. “Or it’s not yours. Maybe the other kid—“

“I was shot,” Ryan stated flatly.

“Well, obviously you _weren’t_ ,” Seth snapped. Because the other boy was not injured in the slightest.

A newcomer to the holding cell took a few unnecessary steps in their direction and was driven off by Ryan’s ‘don’t mess with us’ look.

“I can’t believe I had to leave a _message_ for my dad to bail us out of jail,” Seth sighed, his tone becoming slightly more normal. And when getting bailed out of jail seemed like the most normal part of their night…

“I still have my phone call,” Ryan reminded him. “I could call… Marissa?”

“Uh, what good would _that_ do?” Seth asked sarcastically. “Pretty sure they don’t let minors bail people out of jail.”

Ryan was not offended by his tone. “Well, maybe her dad would—“

“Uh, pretty sure they don’t let _felons_ bail people out of jail,” Seth responded. He didn’t actually know that for sure, but Ryan took his point. Unfortunately, with Seth’s mom and grandfather out of town, the list of decent local adults they knew was nearly exhausted. “Maybe Aunt Hailey?” Seth finally suggested, weakly.

She wasn’t the optimum choice—she’d do it, no doubt, and probably had experience with jails, frankly—but Seth’s reluctance was understandable. “Theresa’s eighteen,” Ryan countered, half-heartedly. “But then the baby…” He’d rather not drag her into any more trouble.

“Summer’s dad…” Seth’s suggestion died on his lips as reality took over. “…hates me, so…”

“Hailey, then?” Ryan surmised without enthusiasm.

“Yeah, I don’t really want to sit here all night,” Seth agreed, shifting uncomfortably on the hard bench.

“Okay.” Ryan was just about to stand and get someone’s attention when the door at the end of the hall opened, allowing someone to enter accompanied by an officer. He was in his early thirties, with curly dark hair, casual clothes, and a gaze that seemed to pierce the two teenagers when he turned it on them.

“Cohen! Atwood!” the guard called, and for a moment the boys didn’t even move. Then the stranger gave them a faint smirk that seemed to jolt them back into the present. “Let’s go,” the officer prompted, allowing them out of the cell. Silently they trailed the stranger back to the admin area of the police station, shooting each other looks that asked if the other had any idea what was going on. They didn’t.

“Sign here, Mr. Wayland,” the stranger was told. “Your effects are over there,” the guard added to the teens, directing them to the other end of the counter. They lost no time putting distance between themselves and their mysterious rescuer.

“Who _is_ this guy?” Seth whispered to Ryan as they collected their phones and wallets.

Ryan kept a watchful eye on him. “He’s not a relative of yours?”

“Are you kidding? No,” Seth answered in annoyance, and Ryan thought he saw the ghost of a smirk flash across the man’s face. “Hey, we’re gonna—“

Ryan shushed him, touching his ear and giving the man a meaningful look. Seth nodded in understanding and began an elaborate pantomime of the two of them making a run for it. Ryan stopped him, nodded once, and mouthed the word, ‘Outside.’

“You boys ready?” the stranger asked in a cheerful voice.

“Oh sure, yeah, can’t wait to get out of jail and go home, nice, safe home,” Seth babbled in his attempt to seem casual.

“Okay,” the man answered simply. “The car’s out front.”

With an agreeable nod the two teens went down the front steps and out the door where the man gestured. Ryan touched Seth’s arm as a signal. “Over here, right?” Ryan said, pointing down the sidewalk. “Isn’t this your car?”

“No, actually—“ the man started to answer.

But the question was just a ruse to get them away from the front of the police station. As soon as they were past it the boys broke into a mad run down the sidewalk, not sure exactly where they were heading but figuring they would work on that part later.

At least, until the stranger appeared in front of them, so suddenly that they almost fell over backwards skittering to a halt. “Boys, I’m here to help you,” he tried to tell them. “Let’s talk—“

“This way!” Ryan insisted, and he and Seth turned down a nearby alley. The man’s ability to materialize in their path was also something that could be discussed later.

Or maybe right now, since he did it again.

“Back, back!” Ryan tried, but was not surprised to see the man behind them when they turned.

“Seth, Ryan—“

“Split,” Ryan suggested recklessly. Seth nodded and ran one way, while Ryan started to charge past the stranger. They both ran headlong into something and bounced off painfully.

“Calm down,” the man suggested, as the two boys pounded in amazement on the invisible barriers preventing them from leaving a small portion of the alley.

“How did you do that?” Seth demanded futilely.

“The same way you do what _you_ do.” The answer would have been ridiculously vague with anyone else, but it stopped the two teens cold. A guilty look passed between them. “The same way you can get shot without being hurt,” he added, staring directly at Ryan.

Seth rejoined his friend, both of them wary and shocked after their long evening. “Who are you?” Seth wanted to know.

“My name is Eli Wayland,” he replied simply. “I’m your father.”

Seth blinked several times, then turned to Ryan. “Is he talking to you?”

Ryan gave him a look. “No,” he assured his friend. “I guess the resemblance is—“

“What?!” Seth squawked, his fear and confusion mutating into indignation. “What resemblance? So he’s got dark hair, what does—“

“I know your father, too,” Eli interrupted, this time speaking to Ryan. “Your biological father.”

Both boys were aware they were adopted, of course. Ryan had found it more relevant in his life than Seth had, since Ryan’s adoptive parents had split up when he was young; the question of who was really responsible for him had come up a number of times as his “mom” and “brother” bounced aimlessly through life. Seth’s family couldn’t be more solid than if he’d been born to the Cohens, though.

Still, they never really expected to hear from their biological parents. Especially not _this_ way. Plus—

“You can’t be my father, you’re, like, thirty,” Seth sputtered, as if that settled it.

“I’m older than I look,” Eli answered with a faint smirk. “And I can explain everything to you. I can answer all your questions,” he went on, “about why you seem to have abilities other people don’t.” He glanced around in distaste. “But I’d rather do it somewhere more comfortable than this alley. Will you let me take you home?”

“Whose home?” Ryan asked suspiciously.

“Your home, the Cohens’,” Eli replied with a sigh, as if reminding himself to be patient.

Ryan and Seth shared a look. “Uno momento,” Seth told Eli, turning his back on him firmly. “Do you have any clue what’s going on?” he whispered to Ryan, who tended to have better instincts about these things.

Ryan gave Eli a speculative look over Seth’s shoulder. “The barriers,” he pointed out, indicating the invisible walls that held them in. “And he knows about—“ He tugged slightly at his shirt that bore the bullet hole.

“You think he’s really my—dad?!” Seth hissed in disbelief. “That’s crazy—“

“Why?” Ryan asked simply.

“Well because—because—“ Seth couldn’t articulate why exactly, it was just a knee-jerk reaction. “How did he know to be here, huh?” His expression changed suddenly. “Unless my dad”—meaning Sandy Cohen—“sent him…”

“I get the feeling he didn’t have to be _told_ by anyone,” Ryan pointed out thoughtfully. He shrugged slightly. “If we went with him, maybe we could get some answers.”

“Getting into a car with a stranger, that’s a great cap to this evening,” Seth grumbled.

Ryan lowered his voice even more. “Look, if he’s just some random crazy dude, I think we can take him.” That was how they’d gotten into this predicament, by taking on people they really shouldn’t have been able to. “And if he’s telling the truth…”

“Answers would be nice,” Seth agreed, seeing the favorable angle. They both turned warily to regard Eli, who was leaning casually against the invisible barrier. “Okay, you can give us a ride home,” he allowed. Eli raised an eyebrow as if amused by this pronouncement. “But I’m calling my dad to tell him we’re on our way home.”

“Okay,” Eli shrugged without concern. He straightened up and walked towards the boys, who watched him warily. “The car is back this way,” he indicated dryly, pointing in the direction the boys had run from. Slowly they started to follow him, unimpeded by any barriers.

Seth pulled out his phone and called his dad’s number again, again getting the answering machine. “Uh, hi, Dad, it’s me,” he began awkwardly. “Hey, you know that whole ‘bail us out of jail’ thing? Totally not necessary now!” He tried hard to sound upbeat and Ryan gave him a sideways glance. “We’re on our way home _right now_ with—“ He paused, unsure what to say. “—this guy named Eli Wayland. See you soon!”

“Nice message,” Eli told him dryly. “This one here.” He opened the front door of a car parked just beyond the police station. “Are the two of you getting in?” he prompted when the boys didn’t move.

Ryan sighed as the inevitable was presented to them. “I’ll take the back.”

“Good idea,” Seth claimed. “He will _snap your neck_ if you try anything funny,” he added to Eli. “Seriously, he’s tough like that. He’s from Benson.”

“I have no doubt,” Eli replied, remarkably straight-faced. He sat patiently in the driver’s seat.

“Well, good,” Seth told him, walking around the front of the car to get in on the passenger side.

Eli started the car and pulled out onto the street. “Goldenshields are extremely protective,” he added, as though continuing his previous comment, “and you two have obviously formed a strong bond.”

“What are you talking about?” Ryan asked flatly.

“Yeah, it’s time we got some _answers_ ,” Seth insisted, trying to sound braver than he felt.

“Okay,” Eli agreed readily. “You two can do things other people can’t. Seth—I bet you get straight A’s without even trying. And you’re probably talented at something artistic as well—music, sculpture—“

“So I’m smart,” Seth conceded, “and I like to draw. That’s not so weird. And sculpture? Who does sculpture in their spare time?”

“Well there’s smart and then there’s _smart_ ,” Eli said ambiguously. “Have you ever had a pop quiz over material you forgot to read? Or had a question on a standardized test you had no idea how to answer?”

“Who hasn’t?” Seth scoffed, when Eli paused.

“And after a moment of panic,” he went on smoothly, “you probably _just knew_ the answer. And you picked the exact right one. Ever been accused of cheating, because you got an impossibly perfect score?” Eli seemed genuinely curious about this.

“No,” Seth replied stonily, even though that wasn’t technically true.

Eli shrugged as if that was unimportant to his argument. “You can probably read something once and remember it forever. Or catch just a glimpse of something and draw it perfectly months later. Do you know anyone else who can do that?”

Seth was quiet, staring out the window at the city lights rolling by. “It’s not really _that_ weird,” he repeated finally, without conviction.

Eli moved to a different target, meeting Ryan’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “I bet you are stronger and faster than the local athletes, even though you don’t work out,” he suggested. “And I bet you heal from injuries faster than you should. As that hole in your shirt attests.”

“How do you know about that?” Seth demanded, uncomfortable with the remarks that hit too close to home. “Were you watching us when—“ He paused.

“When you took on some gang members who were about to mug a woman?” Eli finished dryly. “No, I didn’t see it, but I heard about it later. You two have made a habit of patrolling the neighborhood stopping crime, like a pair of superheroes,” he went on with a smirk. “Why is that?” He seemed to be asking this more of Ryan.

“It’s our neighborhood,” Ryan answered resolutely. “I see that woman all the time, she probably works in one of the houses.”

“It’s a nice neighborhood,” Seth added. “What are _gang members_ doing in it, anyway? That’s just not right.” His tone held indignation, and the will to change things.

“You’re not telling us anything we didn’t know,” Ryan pointed out abruptly. “You’d said you’d answer _our_ questions.” Eli conceded this. “Where’s my—biological father?”

“Montana,” Eli replied promptly. “His name is Max Goldenshield.”

“ _Max Goldenshield_?” Seth repeated with disbelief and derision. “That sounds like… a cheesy ‘80’s action hero. Only ‘golden’ is a little flashy, it should really be ‘Max Ironshield’ or something—“ He stopped abruptly when he saw the other two glancing at him. “I’m just saying.”

“Max Goldenshield,” Ryan said, turning the name over in his mind. “What about my mother?”

“Luna Goldenshield, his wife,” Eli replied. “Also in Montana.”

“Why did they give me up for adoption?”

“Straight to the point,” Eli noted. “It’s tradition among our people.”

“Our people?” Seth scoffed. “I don’t know about _you_ , but _my_ people are Jewish, and no one’s ever told me about _that_ tradition.”

“I’m Jewish, too--” Eli assured him.

“I’m not,” Ryan countered.

“—but we’re not really human,” Eli concluded.

There was dead silence in the car. “ _What_?!” Seth finally sputtered. “Really, _what_?!”

“Some people call us Immortals,” Eli went on steadily. “Bit of an exaggeration, really, though we do live a lot longer than they do. And of course, we have abilities they don’t, that they might call… magic.” Suddenly Eli vanished from the driver’s seat, leaving no one at the wheel, and appeared in the back beside Ryan. Both boys shouted in alarm and Seth grabbed for the steering wheel, which didn’t budge. Nor did the car veer off-course. “It’s fine,” Eli claimed as they continued exclaiming.

“How are you doing that?” Ryan wanted to know.

“ _Stop_ doing it and get back up here!” Seth insisted in a panic.

“Relax, it’s okay,” Eli said again, just as suddenly reappearing at the wheel. “’How’ is a little hard to explain, if you mean the mechanics of it,” he went on blithely. “I think it, and it happens. It does take training to control, though.”

Seth twisted around to stare at Ryan. “Do you feel like you’re on drugs? I could be on drugs right now.”

Ryan shook his head slowly. “No, I feel… okay.” Seth rolled his eyes at Ryan’s lack of alarm, even though staying calm in a tense situation was generally one of his best assets.

“Ever really, really wanted something and had it show up in your room with no explanation?” Eli went on after a moment.

Ryan coughed meaningfully and looked at Seth. “She was drunk,” he claimed immediately. “She thought she was in Marissa’s house!”

“Ah, girl problems,” Eli commented knowingly.

“What? No, no _problems_ ,” Seth said hurriedly.

“But _why_ do you have… other people raise us?” Ryan persisted, refusing to be sidetracked.

Eli finally seemed to find this a worthy question. “Our children are raised by humans so they learn to empathize with them. As adults, we spend a lot of time caring for humans in return.”

“Caring for humans,” Seth repeated in a disdainful mutter.

 

_Skipping ahead…_

First they had flown to Helena. A couple of connections were needed and the planes were small regional jets that balked at Summer’s three-part “carry-on item,” but otherwise it wasn’t a bad trip. Baby Ben slept most of the time and even received compliments from the other passengers as they exited. Neither Ryan nor Theresa had been on a plane before; she was nervous, but Ryan was too busy to worry about things like how the plane was staying aloft. He hopped between Theresa and Marissa, trying not to let either feel neglected; both girls felt awkward around the other but Ryan seemed to take it in stride in that stoic way of his.

Ryan’s father—biological father, acting through Eli Wayland—had insisted that both girls make the trip to see him, and Ryan as well; and also Seth’s parents (er, adoptive parents) and Summer. The nomenclature got confusing after a while. But unlike Seth, Ryan didn’t have a solid father figure in his life—Sandy, for the last eighteen months or so, came the closest, but there was really no one Ryan thought of when he considered the word ‘father.’ So it wasn’t so difficult to insert a specific stranger into that slot in his mind.

At Helena, they switched from planes to a train, which involved finding a taxi van big enough to carry all of them and their luggage across town to the train station. Eli had explained the whole journey to them and made reservations where possible; but they were now in ‘Goldenshield territory,’ whatever that meant, and Max Goldenshield was not a fan of making things easy for people. Hence no chauffeured limo waiting at the airport; and no stable family growing up, Ryan extrapolated. He was holding his anger about this in reserve, waiting to see what kind of man his father was, what kind of explanation he gave. If it made sense to Ryan he was prepared to let any resentment and bitterness go—he wasn’t the type to hold on to those things anyway.

The main lounge of the train station was comfortably full, mostly commuters and daytrippers it seemed. Ryan felt he and his group attracted more curious glances and whispers than usual but tried not to fixate on it. The destination board listed a stop in the town of Goldenshield, as promised—if this was all somehow just an elaborate hoax, the Montana Transportation Authority seemed to be in on it.

“Are you okay?” Ryan checked of Theresa. “Are you hungry? There’s a couple of food places here.”

“I’m okay,” Theresa assured him. “The ride to Goldenshield is only about an hour, isn’t it?”

“I think so. Marissa, are you—“

The other girl stood abruptly, albeit with a smile. “Come on, Summer, let’s get something to eat,” she suggested, taking her friend’s arm. Marissa had always appreciated Ryan’s core of utter decency and authenticity, so different from most of the boys she’d grown up with—but she was too used to being independent to feel entirely comfortable with his protective overdrive.

“Do you think they sell cowboy boots here?” Summer wondered excitedly. “I would love to find a pair of cute cowboy boots.”

“Probably,” Marissa claimed, anything to lure her away.

“Maybe I could go with you and…” Seth trailed off as he saw the girls leaving without him. “Whatever,” he sighed, slumping in his chair. “I just wanted a newspaper or something. I feel very intellectually dull right now, like a samurai sword that’s been lying unused in a cave for a thousand years.”

“Nice metaphor,” Sandy Cohen responded dryly.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Are you hungry, Kirsten?” Ryan asked, looking around Sandy to his wife.

“Dude, please confine your hunter-gatherer instincts to your own harem,” Seth suggested bluntly. “Roping my mom in is a little weird.”

“He’s just being polite,” Kirsten countered, her tone suggesting certain _other_ people could use some extra politeness. “No, thank you, Ryan, I’m fine.”

“How about some cute cowboy boots?” Sandy cracked cheerfully and she gave him a _look_ before going back to her magazine.

Ryan popped up from his seat, seemingly unable to keep still, and wandered to the edge of the lounge where he could gaze down the short concourse. Seth joined him and noticed Marissa and Summer a few doors down trying on cowboy hats at a cheesy souvenir shop.

“So, Goldenshield territory,” Seth opened, looking around. “Your people seem very…” A man walked by wearing a huge metal belt buckle and a bolero tie. “…rustic,” he decided. “Would not have pegged you for the horse-riding, camping-under-the-stars type.”

Ryan’s sideways gaze was chastising. “I have never ridden a horse or been camping in my life,” he stated, though he knew Seth was aware of this. “And these are _not_ ‘my people.’ Do I seem anxious?”

“Anxious? No, I wouldn’t say anxious,” Seth assessed, watching his friend turn from the group in the lounge to the two girls in the concourse. “But very… alert. Like a hawk. A hungry hawk who’s spotted a mouse and has hungry baby hawklings to feed.”

Ryan was far too used to Seth’s colorful metaphors to be fazed by them. “Theresa needs to feed Ben,” he noted, watching her. “I guess she’ll have to use the ladies’ room again. They don’t seem to have a family restroom or private lounge—“

“Way more than I wanted to think about,” Seth interrupted. “With all due respect to your fatherly responsibilities and alpha dog nature.” An idea suddenly occurred to him. “Why don’t you _make_ a lounge?”

“What?” Ryan asked flatly.

But now Seth was into the idea. “Use your powers, _make_ a private lounge or whatever,” he repeated, barely remembering to keep his voice low. “You know, like Eli taught us—“

“He _also_ taught us that it was really difficult to control if we didn’t know what we were doing,” Ryan hissed in return, glancing around in case anyone should overhear them.

“Come on, how hard can it be?” Seth insisted. He nodded at a door in the wall beside them, bearing a label of ‘Janitorial Closet 7.’ “Take this room, clear out the mops and whatever, put in a table and chair, and change the label to… Ladies’ Private Lounge.” Ryan blinked at him, obviously against the idea. “Come on, man! I’d do it but this isn’t my territory.” Eli had been very clear on the fact that people from other ‘special’ families were temporary visitors in Goldenshield territory and were not to make waves.

“This is not a good idea,” Ryan predicted, but he focused his attention on Janitorial Closet 7, trying to manipulate matter in the vague way Eli had told them about. It was like trying to find and flex a muscle you didn’t think about much, and once you found it, you had to concentrate on not losing—

Ben let out a squall and Ryan blinked and turned. There was a clatter inside the janitorial closet and then the door burst open, mops and buckets tumbling to the ground as though they were trying to escape. Fortunately they didn’t go any further but just lay there on the floor.

Ryan and Seth stared at each other guiltily, then tried to look completely innocent as station personnel hurried over to clean up the inexplicable mess. “You, uh, dropped a broom there,” Seth pointed out helpfully, before Ryan grabbed his arm and towed him away.

“That was _not_ a good idea,” he assessed.

“Yeah, I thought it was going to go all _Sorcerer’s Apprentice_ on us for a second,” Seth agreed.

They went back to the lounge seats, where Sandy was cooing at a bawling Ben while Theresa scrambled in the diaper bag. “Sorry,” she said in a flustered tone. “I’m just going to change him—“

“I’ll do it,” Ryan offered immediately, taking the baby and putting him expertly over his shoulder.

“Um, I’m not sure if the men’s room has a changing station,” Theresa pointed out. The diaper bag finally settled, she took the baby back from Ryan. “I might feed him, too, so don’t worry if I’m gone longer.”

“Oh, do you need any help?” Kirsten offered immediately.

“No, but thank you,” Theresa assured her, heading towards the ladies’ room. She appreciated that the Cohens were good people who had given her a lot of help because of Ryan; but she felt her status was too flimsy to accept as much as they offered. She was just the girl who’d managed to get knocked up by their sort-of son, who’d gone on to date someone else. She knew _they_ would never describe her that way. But she also knew, deep down, that she didn’t belong in their lives. Then again, Ryan didn’t really belong in their lives, either.

Marissa and Summer wandered back over, carrying McDonald’s bags and purchases from the souvenir shop. Summer was wearing pink cowboy boots.

“Very authentic,” Sandy told her, managing to make it sound like a sincere compliment.

“Argh! Summer!” Seth complained. “No one else is wearing pink cowboy boots! Even _I_ can see those are strictly for the tourists.”

“Please, I think I know _way_ more about fashion than _you_ do, Cohen, even in this cowtown,” Summer scoffed in her affectionately dismissive way. “So this… _ranch_ is going to have a pool, right?” she asked, plopping down beside Ryan. Her tone was almost threatening.

“Um, I’m not sure,” he was forced to admit, slightly afraid.

“It’ll probably be too cold to lay out by the pool,” Marissa warned her, sitting on Ryan’s other side. “Hungry?” she asked slyly, offering him a cheeseburger. He took it with a small smirk.

“But I brought my bikini,” Summer insisted, as though a pool should materialize for just this reason.

And if Seth was in charge of it, it _would_. And maybe in some way—he _could_ be in charge of that. “Oh, we will find you something to lounge beside,” he promised her. “Even if it’s a bathtub.”

Finally it was time to board the train. More awkwardness with seats ensued as Ryan wanted to keep both Theresa and Marissa close, Summer and Marissa wanted to sit together, Seth wanted to sit next to Summer, and Sandy and Kirsten danced around trying to go where they were put. They did not fully understand what was going on with their two boys, only that the time they’d worried about since they’d adopted Seth had finally come—the time when his biological family would come back for him, as they’d been warned about during the adoption process. It had been part of the agreement. But they’d had no idea that somehow, it would also apply to Ryan—or that it would be _his_ biological family they’d all be traveling to see.

Once they left Helena the countryside spread out before them in a long, flat line, the tall grass rippling like waves to the foot of the mountains in the distance, the sky a deep aquamarine above everything. The crowd on the train thinned out with every stop at increasingly distant towns; only a few new people joined them. One was a dark-skinned young woman in a smart plaid knee skirt and jacket, carrying a matching satchel. To some—like Seth—it looked a little too school uniform dorky; but from the way the girls watched her go by, they realized it had to be expensive and/or trendy.

“Burberry,” Summer whispered to Marissa enviously; the other girl nodded sagely. The young woman continued on down the car to a seat next to some other people she apparently knew.

The train began rolling again, rocking back and forth in a manner not conducive to certain hobbies, like reading and gaming. Kirsten was trying to flip through a Montana travel guide anyway. “Ryan, you said your, er, father was going to meet us at the station in Goldenshield, didn’t you?” she checked. “I’m not sure there’s any car rental agencies in that town…”

“That’s okay, we don’t have directions to the ranch anyway,” Sandy pointed out blithely.

“Yeah, someone’s supposed to meet us,” Ryan confirmed. “They were kind of vague on the details.”

Seth, who was facing the direction of the Burberry woman’s seat, noticed that she and her friends kept looking back at them and whispering. Finally she got up and walked in their direction, expertly leaning into the motion of the train like a veteran.

“Excuse me,” she said to Ryan, who looked up in surprise. “Are you going to Goldenshield?”

“That’s right,” he agreed.

She smiled. “So am I.” Her eyes were bright and held Ryan’s until he felt he ought to say something in return.

“Oh. Really?” he finally came up with. Her eyes were green, flecked with gold, and her skin the color of milk chocolate.

“Are you Max’s son?” she asked, with slight excitement. Ryan’s jaw dropped, which she took as agreement. “The newspaper said you were coming. And you do look a lot like him.”

For the first time Ryan glanced around at the others, who were all listening attentively. “You—uh, you know my dad?”

“Well sure, everyone knows Max,” she said in a tone of quiet confidence. “We’re related somehow, then. I’m Melody, I live on Mourning Dove Lane.” She reached her hand out and Ryan shook it dully. “I’m just coming back home for the long weekend. I go to college in Big Springs.”

Seth popped up over the edge of the seat. “They said in the _newspaper_ we were coming?” he asked with some excitement.

“Sure, it’s a big event,” Melody agreed, not taking her eyes off Ryan. “Even my grandma can’t remember the last time there was a main line Goldenshield in town.”

“Sorry, ‘main line’?” Sandy questioned, when it looked like no one else was going to.

“A child of the main Goldenshield family out at the ranch,” Melody clarified, or meant to anyway. “There’s lots of Goldenshield offspring around town, but they say the ones from the ranch are different. Special.” She smiled again, in a way that suggested ‘different’ and ‘special’ were extremely good things.

“Um, hmm,” Ryan replied inarticulately.

“I hope I’ll see you around town later,” Melody told him warmly. Then she released him from her hold and went back down to her seat.

“I’m a Wayland, if you’ve heard of us…” Seth tried lamely, but Summer smacked his leg and he turned back around quickly. Marissa had to tug on Ryan to get him to straighten up; then she and Summer proceeded to gossip about how bold that girl was to flirt with Ryan _right in front of them_ while also claiming to be _related_ , and if _this_ was the kind of place they were going to… Theresa hid her own expression, which was more of a smirk.

The encounter left the rest of them quiet for the remainder of the trip, however, which wasn’t very long anyway. Pretty soon the mechanical voice in the speakers above them announced Goldenshield as their stop and everyone began gathering up their things.


End file.
